MSPB, through its Office of Policy and Evaluation, conducts research on federal
workforce policies.

However, that part of the agency's mission has been hampered over the last year or
so because of the steep sequestration-related budget cuts at the agency.

Budget cuts and resource constraints limited the number of reports the agency was
able to produce last year and hindered efforts to launch a Web-based survey
platform to conduct workforce studies, according to MSPB's annual performance
report released earlier this year.

When thousands of employees across the federal government were furloughed last
year thanks to those same budget cuts, more than 32,000 employees filed appeals with MSPB, a caseload that
has stretched the agency "beyond capacity," Chairman Susan
Tsui Grundmann told Federal News Radio recently.